Jeff Yan: If starting a business again, I might choose to study options

The founder of the decentralized perpetual contract trading platform Hyperliquid, Jeff Yan, was interviewed by the Empire podcast at DAS 2026 Asia Station. When asked what he would build if he were a builder and no longer allowed to create infrastructure, he stated he would look at what hasn't been built yet and has real potential, depending on what other builders are doing.

Jeff Yan mentioned that at least for now, he might explore options because he has heard many people want to trade options. He believes that perpetual contracts generally meet the needs of many users, but some users express that trading perpetual contracts does not satisfy all the market views they want to express.

He thinks that HIP-4 is a very obvious way to build an options protocol, which can inherit spot, order books, and portfolio margin; on the market-making side, there are also perpetual contracts that can be used to hedge the delta of options. The key is how to turn that one element into something widely appealing. He does not believe that any products similar to options or convexity yield styles have truly achieved escape velocity in the crypto space, but such products have clearly done so in traditional finance.